About E-mail

Electronic mail - e-mail - is probably something you are already used to using. In our course, it is a good back-up for assignments if you are uncertain about whether you were able to post your work.

The course is set up so that a response comes back to you to let you know that you were able to get a message to the instructor. Occasionally the response doesn't come through.

Please let me know if that occurs, by sending the address on the server that you were working with when the assignment sender seemed to fail. You can do that by

going up to the http or address bar,

copying the address and

sending an e-mail, explaining that something seems to be wrong with the sending mechanism.

I like receiving pertinent messages - questions or statements about the class, information about you, the student or person. I like to know when things don't suit you - when something doesn't work or is hard to understand. All of these kinds of e-mails are suitable, appropriate and functional. It's even nice to get greeting cards, quotations, and inspirational stories.

Because there are so many things wrong with attachments, I do not open them. If you send an attachment, I will not get to receive your message. There are just too many viruses and worms that get introduced to machines through that process. You may want to consider doing the same. They often take a lot of time to download and a virus can be expensive and take a couple of weeks to fix - wipe out all your files, sometimes even corrupt your hard drive beyond repair.

You may want to seriously consider getting some form of virus protection for your system as well as a back-up process. . . even a couple of floppy disks that you copy to and from each time you finish the day will likely save you frustration and work in the long run.

As you might imagine, I do not wish to receive mass mailings, chain letters, crude or suggestive, unkind or denigrating jokes, stories or cartoons. I hope you will not use e-mail in that way with anyone, but it is really important that you not introduce that feeling to anyone taking the course.

. . . and no flaming is allowed to anyone - Bad manners, and bad idea. . . Do no harm!!!!! Master teachers are masters of themselves.

You may want to have two different kinds of e-mail - one using your dana account and your service provider, and one that you set up with a free provider such as hot mail. Sometimes it is helpful to organize your course work so that each time you go into the mail room you know if it is course or friend related mail.

E-mail is such a powerful tool. It is easy to get hooked. I hope that is your experience.

How exciting to think that you might wake up in the morning, wondering if you have mail about your assignments.

Wouldn't it be great to be so excited about a course that you could hardly wait to get the time to go on to the next module? That's how I feel about getting your assignments. I can hardly wait to see what you think - and the exciting thing about a web course is that I will really get to know what you want to tell me. Web courses give students a chance to comment on every concept, every lesson, every idea.